US commando raids target Islamist leaders in Africa



Al-Liby was on the FBI's most wanted list
US special forces have carried out two separate
raids in Africa targeting senior Islamist militants,
American officials say.
In Libya, US commandos captured an al-Qaeda leader
accused of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania.
Anas al-Liby was seized in the capital Tripoli.
And a leader of the al-Shabab group was targeted in
southern Somalia, but that raid appears to have failed.
The al-Shabab leader - who has not been identified - is
suspected of involvement in last month's attack in the
Westgate shopping centre in Kenya's capital Nairobi,
which left at least 67 people dead.
Al-Shabab has said it carried out the attack on 21
September.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the operations in
Libya and Somalia showed that the US would never
stop "in its effort to hold those accountable who
conduct acts of terror".
Those who attacked American interests "can run but
they can't hide", he told reporters in Indonesia where
he is attending an Asian summit.
$5m bounty
Anas al-Liby's relatives and US officials said he had
been seized in the Libyan capital early on Saturday.
He was parking outside his house when three vehicles
encircled him, his car's window was smashed and his
gun was seized before he was taken away, his brother
Nabih was quoted as saying by AP.
He added that Liby's wife also saw the attack,
describing the abductors as foreign-looking
"commandos".
The raid was conducted with the knowledge of the
Libyan government, a US official was quoted as saying
by CNN.
More than 220 people died in the 1998 embassy attack
in Kenya and Tanzania
Liby "is currently lawfully detained by the US military in
a secure location outside of Libya", Pentagon
spokesman George Little said.
The 49-year-old is believed to have been one of the
masterminds behind the 1998 US embassy attacks,
which killed more than 220 people in Kenya and
Tanzania.
He has been indicted in a New York court in
connection with the attacks.
Liby - whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai
- has been on the FBI's most wanted list for more than
a decade with a $5m (£3.1m) bounty on his head.
Al-Qaeda's leadership has been consistently targeted
since the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US special
forces in 2011 in Pakistan.
'Mission aborted'
The US defence department has also confirmed that
special forces carried out a seaborne operation in
Somalia's coastal town of Barawe on Saturday.
Mr Little said the forces "were involved in a counter-
terrorism operation against a known al-Shabab
terrorist". He declined to provide any further details.
Initial reports in the US media quoted unnamed US
officials as saying that the suspect had been captured
or killed by US Navy Seals in the pre-dawn raid on a
villa.
However, the officials later said that the Seals failed to
find the intended target, who was not identified.
The raid was carried out by members of Seal Team Six
- the same unit that killed bin Laden, a US military
official told AP.
The official added that in Barawe the commandos had
decided to abort the mission after encountering fierce
resistance from al-Shabab fighters.
"The Barawe raid was planned a week and a half ago,"
a US security official told the New York Times.
"It was prompted by the Westgate attack," added the
official, who was speaking on the condition of
anonymity.
Al-Shabab earlier told the BBC that "white soldiers" had
arrived by boat in Barawe and rebels had repulsed
them, losing a fighter.

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